


Nepeta Quest

by ckret2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Doomed Timelines, Gen, Nepetaquest, Relationships mentioned only in passing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 13:50:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17767982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: Your name is NEPETA LEIJON, you're NINE SWEEPS OLD, and all of your friends died playing SGRUB three sweeps ago.





	Nepeta Quest

**Author's Note:**

> So yesterday I said "I'm gonna post a fic that nobody asked for" and somebody messaged me "Nepeta Quest 2019?" so, y'know, at that point I HAD to.

Your name is NEPETA LEIJON, you're NINE SWEEPS OLD, and all of your friends died playing SGRUB three sweeps ago. 

You think they all died, anyway. You're not sure about Gamzee or Aradia. 

Aradia was the second to go, after Karkat died. She'd declared that this session was d00med and disappeared. Equius said that the tracking device in her robot blipped out of existence then. (In retrospect, you realize just how cr33py he was over her, and you wish you'd told him that. There are a lot of things you wish you'd told him.) She was never seen again. 

Similarly, Gamzee just stopped replying to everyone one day, and you've seen no trace of his sopored-up self anywhere in the incipisphere since, so you think he must be gone, too. 

You still search, though. For both of them. You tore apart the bedrooms in Prospit and Derse, too, searching even for their dreamers. 

You haven't found them. 

You think it's just you. 

No—you KNOW it's just you. 

You steal to get by. You've stolen your own dreamer, and hid her somewhere safe—you might need that second life. You've stolen the black ring—nearly dying in the process—and the white scepter, to put off the Reckoning as long as possible. It's easy for you, as a Rogue, to steal. You don't think that this is what a Rogue of _Heart_ was ever meant to be stealing; but you've been doing it for love—for the love of your friends, for their precious memories, to honor their sacrifices and complete the game they started—and you've been told that, unlike a Thief, you are less inclined to snatch your aspect than your aspect is to snatch you; so maybe this is all by the rules of the game. 

You hope so. You get farther, you've found, whenever you play by the rules. Maybe someone clever or forceful—like Karkat or Equius, both of whom you loved—like Vriska, who made you her apprentice, her sister, her friend, Thief and Rogue together against a cold and cruel game session, and who fell last as you watched—maybe one of them could have won by breaking the rules—but not you. What Skaia has taught you is that if you break the rules, the rules break you. 

Equius would have been proud to see you succumb to law and order, even if it wasn't _troll_ law and order. Even though he isn't here—and even though you still love him—you quietly resent him for his imagined smug satisfaction. Giving up the law of the jungle, the law of wild cats, to follow the law of a game feels too much like defeat. It galls you that even the thievery of a Rogue is coded into the game rules. You miss being wild. 

You miss your childhood. 

But you're going to be free, soon. You've spent three sweeps preparing, planning, making traps and weapons, swaying the consorts and other citizens of your friends' worlds to follow you in an army greater than Prospit's and Derse's combined—maybe _this_ is what a Rogue of Heart is for, stealing the hearts of the NPCs?—and soon, you will march. Soon, you will put on the black ring, go to Skaia with your army, throw the white scepter down at the Black King's feet, and let the Reckoning begin. 

The odds are uncertain. The consorts were never made to fight. The angels' loyalty is dubious. You've never been a leader or a strategist. Even with your dreamer carefully hidden away, you know deep inside that, in truth, you only get one shot at this. 

But it's time. It's been three sweeps. In less than one more sweep, you'll be ten—double digits—the age you should be leaving Alternia for the stars, the age you should at _least_ have a matesprit and kismesis and be anxiously awaiting your first visit from an Imperial Drone. You can't stand the thought of still being trapped in the Incipisphere at ten sweeps old. You have to fight now. 

Either you'll conquer the Black King and lead your army through a door into a new universe, or you'll die trying and join your dear friends in oblivion. But no matter what happens, your quest will be over.

**Author's Note:**

> Also available on [tumblr](http://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/182771161687/nepeta-quest-2019).


End file.
